God and suffering

I wrote the following "post" for my daughter's CarePage site while thinking about why so many children are forced to deal with illnesses like cancer (www.CarePages.com AshleyHendrick). It has been a while now since I first wrote these words, but I thought I would re-post them today. I hope they help someone who is struggling with the kinds of questions I struggled with when my daughter was so sick...

I was listening this evening to an interview of a well-known pastor who preaches what many refer to as “prosperity theology”. The pastor acknowledged in the interview that his teachings almost always emphasize the blessings and goodness in life that God provides to those who love and serve Him. I must admit that I have never been a subscriber to prosperity theology; at least not in the way this pastor presents it, and I have always felt that scripture does not support its underlying message. Although I know that this type of teaching is popular, I think that at least a part of the allure is that it seems to appeal to our life-long attraction to fairness.

As a culture, I think that our kids have been encouraged to focus on the notion of fairness, and to believe that this is the way the world operates. As children grow up however, and realize that things are not really as fair as they used to believe, this obsession with fairness evolves into a somewhat modified “cause-and-effect” way of thinking. Cause-and-effect thinking is similar to our childhood idea of fairness in that it maintains the idea of good begetting good and bad begetting bad, but it differs some in that it requires our participation through action or belief. A person has to believe in God, and live out their faith to receive the benefits and blessings from above.

We like things like this don’t we? We like to believe that if we love God with all our heart, mind and soul, that He will return the “favor”, and protect us from whatever hurts we know are out there. We want that hedge of safety, where by reading the bible, or going to church, or spending time in prayer, we can find peace in the promise that God will hold all pain and suffering away, and keep us safe from harm.

This isn’t always how things work though, and this lesson is taught to us through the story of Job. Through no fault of his own, Job lost his wealth, his health and his children, all within a very short period of time, and he did not experience these losses as a punishment from God for doing something wrong. On the contrary, God described Job in the bible as the “finest man in all the earth, a man filled with integrity; who fears God, and will have nothing to do with evil”. It is clear that God was pleased with Job; yet terrible things were still allowed to come his way.

It is hard for us to read about the story of Job, at least if we allow ourselves to think about the lessons it includes. One of these lessons it seems is that prosperity is not always given as a reward for being good or pleasing God. Also included is the message that suffering is not always a penalty for sin, or at least not our own. In other words, there are times when people who love God, still experience incredible pain and hardship.

I remember reading some time ago that for Job, the greatest trial he experienced was not so much the loss of his own health, or even the loss of his beloved children, as incredible as those losses were. Job’s greatest trial instead, was being unable to understand why God allowed these terrible things to happen. He wondered where God was in all of his suffering.

As we try to apply these lessons to our lives today, we must begin by acknowledging that God has not promised us an easy life. Acceptance of this premise is a required first step as we attempt to reconcile the hurts we are almost certain to experience in life, with the ideas of fairness we refuse to let loose. What God does promise us instead is that if we are faithful to Him, He will never leave us or forsake us. He will be with us through all of the moments of our lives… the good and the bad, the highs and the lows, and even the times that we feel we cannot make it through. God will be there.

Since Ashley completed her last chemo treatment a few months ago, there have been many “new” children diagnosed with cancer. At the same time, there have been countless other tragedies that have led to the loss of so many lives, and so many people have experienced the incredible hurt of losing someone they loved. Many of these people are believers, and have lived a life that is pleasing to God…yet their loss is so great, and their hurt so profound.

I guess that the point that I am trying to make tonight is that life isn’t about serving God and living out our faith, so that we will be spared the hurts of the world. It isn’t about bringing honor to Him, so that He will reciprocate, and bring comfort to us. It really isn’t about doing or believing anything, so that something comes back to us in return. We serve God, and live out our faith, and bring honor to Him for the plain and simple reason that He is God. We make a big mistake when we teach or even believe that “being” a Christian means we will have all of the earthly desires of our heart, or that we will live a long and hurt-free life. What being a Christian means is that when the trials and tragedies of life do come our way, we will have the love of God to help us make it through. This is what I have learned.